Contact Center Articles

CallTalk™ Caramels: Sweet Snippets from BenchmarkPortal’s Best CallTalk Episodes Tip of the day: The investments you make in your people (including their work environment) are your most important investments - and will provide you with positive Return on ...

Like any other work environment, call centers can either become a place of joy or the proverbial dungeon – that place to which we must go to serve out our time. If you find yourself dreading work each day, it’s time to take action. Some simple changes can ...

Contact center managers are caught in a triangle: they have to satisfy their bosses by satisfying their customers, which requires satisfied and productive employees. Increasingly, the employees they have to satisfy belong to the millennials of Generation-Y.

First call resolution (FCR) is best defined as the percentage of calls coming into your center that were satisfied completely on the first call, whether by IVR or by an agent. The goals of FCR include better agent performance, increased customer ...

When agents are faced with a challenging question and do not have the answer, they generally have one of two options; 1) place the caller on hold, while they look for the answer, or 2) transfer the call to someone with the requisite knowledge. Thus we see a ...

Customer feedback is only worthwhile when it is used to change behaviors within the organization to improve the customer experience. Yet most companies find it challenging to design and implement a truly effective customer voice program that adheres to best ...

The success of any service organization depends on continuous improvement, and the key to improvement is found through listening to the voice of the customer via direct surveys. There are numerous methods available to collect customer feedback, which include ...

Location, location, location! Whether for new companies trying to establish their first center, or existing operations looking to expand or relocate their centers, the business of site selection and optimization presents some challenging issues. Our panel of ...

How often and true become the words, “If there were only a few more hours in the day…” As with any other form of management, time management involves a series of processes depending upon it goals. Whereas the trend is to consider time management as a balance ...

Is your company more focused on skills or on process? Most managers say they concentrate on processes. Our experts suggest that when organizations become very process-oriented they also become very compliance-based, which leaves little room for valuable ...

Never underestimate the importance of your IVR. It is often said that good service starts at the front door. Just like a good hotel, where the doorman greets you and the whole experience is set by the ambiance of the lobby and the welcome received, for call ...

Across all industries the complaint ratio is approximately 7.5% of all calls, with complaints in the auto manufacturing industry touching nearly 20%. Regardless of their nature and origin, the proper handling of complaint calls is one of a call center’s most ...

Call center leaders want well-trained employees who are good performers, but they need practical training solutions that can be implemented quickly, without breaking the bank. IF they can be assured that the investment will yield the desired results; call ...

Auxiliary time (or AUX) is an agent state (when logged into an ACD system), that is used to make an agent unavailable for incoming distributed calls. Its basic purpose is to manage the workload of non-call activities. It is important in managing service ...

Training is an essential component of call center operations. It is important at all levels and is often the secret weapon for getting poorly performing centers to “Top Drawer” status. Research at BenchmarkPortal suggests that when building or reviewing ...

Team meetings are regularly scheduled, compulsory gatherings of the contact center team that usually last at least an hour. They are often perceived as being drab and boring – or they become the hurried huddle where a manager or supervisor hastens to push out ...

Agent burnout is often correlated to the culture of the call center and to the culture of the people working in the call center. Sweatshop centers and “crisis call” centers have particularly high levels of burnout. A statistical proxy for burnout is agent ...

Studies show that the majority of call centers set their agent compensation purely to meet that offered by the “call center down the street.” Experts, however, say that compensation should be viewed as a corollary to company strategies and mission. ...

Companies need to have a defined strategy toward Social Media in order to leverage it properly. This means managers must understand SM and feel comfortable engaging with the SMNs such as Facebook, Twitter, etc. To avoid disaster and gain the optimal ...

By definition, schedule adherence is the percentage of time agents are where they are supposed to be, according to their assigned schedules – – which can include work time, lunch and break time, training time, team meeting time, etc. Poor adherence can be ...

Across all industries the complaint ratio is approximately 7.5% of all calls, with complaints in the auto-manufacturing industry skyrocketing to a high of nearly 20%. Regardless of their nature and origin, the correct and proper handling of complaint calls is ...

First call resolution (FCR) is a double-edged metric in that it relates to the quality of calls as well as the efficiency of the call center. In terms of quality, FCR is a customer-facing metric, as customers are very aware as to whether their call was ...

In a competitive market, the ability of a company to be customer-centric and develop strong relationships with its customers through its customer service channels becomes a prime differentiator that favors success. It is therefore essential that companies ...

Benchmarking is a tool best used for optimizing the performance of the contact center. Through its use, managers can pinpoint areas of opportunity for improvement, and support those initiatives that will result in the best ROI for the center and organization. ...

Base pay and benefits should be competitive given local market conditions and the skills of the agents. Do comparative surveys to know how your package plays in your employment basin. Where appropriate, consider pay differentials to recognize less convenient ...

After call work time (ACWT) is a component of call handle time that deserves managerial attention. It usually involves completing the customer record before taking the next call. This is normally done via electronic systems, but may, in some centers, include ...

Call abandonment is often considered as a lower-level metric, and thus people do not focus on the implications of abandoned calls to the organization, which include staffing issues (too few agents indicates that staffing levels are not in alignment with ...

The success of any service organization depends on continuous improvement, and the key to improvement is found through listening to the voice of the customer via direct surveys. There are numerous methods available to collect customer feedback, which include ...

Empower your agents and increase productivity through good dashboards. Studies show that while over 60% of call centers have management dashboards, only 40% have agent dashboards. Research also indicates that when agents are properly trained, properly ...

In e-mail centers, where voice communications take a back seat to written communications, the soft-skills requirements to “smile as you dial” or “keep a smile in your voice” have little importance. However, in those centers where asynchronous communications ...

Service Level is the granddaddy of call center metrics. Traditionally, answering 80% of calls in 20 seconds was considered a best practices goal. While some remain attached to this metric, experts increasingly see this as a metric that needs to be put into ...

There is a growing trend by call centers to transition, in whole or in part, to using home-based agents (HBA). The management of home-based agents, however, requires skills not commonly used in the traditional center. Understanding these skills can lead to ...

As social media networks gain in importance for companies, so do the myths and rumors about them. The three largest myths are (1) social media does not affect customer service; (2) there is no ROI (return on investment) for social media in customer service; ...

A healthy approach toward work-life balance is crucial for both productivity and motivation. Instead, we often see dysfunctions in the contact center workplace. At one end of the spectrum, some cultures require and reward consistent presence and continual ...

While benchmarking your metrics is essential for good call center management, executives must embed benchmarking into a larger process focused on three “D’s”: data, diagnostics, and decisions: Data – Don’t get lost in the weeds. Determine what three metrics ...

Quality monitoring programs often become fixated on QA forms; however, there are other necessary components that will assure you are getting the greatest value from your QA program, which is agent feedback and coaching. The coaching that happens in a call ...

In today’s advanced contact center environment, Workforce Management (WFM) should not be thought of as only a process, but a culture that uses data to drive systems and practices toward optimum results. Centers that continue to maintain their WFM practices on ...

Quality Monitoring, traditionally seen by agents as the dreaded ‘Big Brother’ operation of a company, can be transformed into a process appreciated by agents, as well as helping achieve customer service objectives. Key points include:

If you have been approaching Workforce Management (WFM) the same way for the last few years, you may be missing important advances. WFM is no longer just about the labor force (agents) and putting butts in seats; its evolution is now about changing floor ...

We all know that poor morale causes agent churn and that lack of positive leadership can contribute to these maladies. We may even suspect that we, as managers, may be doing something wrong. But what should we do about it? Make some notes on the following ...